Sleeping 18 to 20 hours a day seems like the perfect life, for a koala, that is! Koalas mainly eat and sleep all day long. When they sleep they are usually in a tree curled up in a ball. Eucalyptus leaves are their main diet. Other animals, including other marsupials, cannot digest Eucalyptus leaves like koalas can. Their big claws are used to protect themselves and used for climbing. Their front two claws have two thumbs and three fingers, which help them climb better and faster. They live in Australia and spend a majority of their time in trees, yet occasionally walk around on the ground.

Kuna (which means “gray hair” in Aborigine) is one of the koalas at the San Diego Zoo. One of the koala keepers let us see Kuna up close as he was munching on some Eucalyptus leaves. He is four years old and is very friendly and doesn’t mind being held by the keepers.

When koala keeper Amy Alfrey brought out Kuna, he was clamped onto her shoulder. She put him on one of the tree branches that had his favorite two species of Eucalyptus leaves tied onto it. Right away, Kuna started munching contentedly.

Amy let us go into the koala barn to see more koalas. All the koalas were in their own enclosures and had their own tree branches with Eucalyptus leaves tied to them. On each one of the enclosures it had the name of the koala and how old it was. All the male koalas have to be separated because if they were all together, they would end up fighting with one another. Most of them were either sleeping or eating. When I saw one of the koalas in the barn, it was very skinny and small compared to the other koalas. Amy told us that even though he was the smallest and skinniest koala there, he ate a lot of food! Instead of having four bunches of leaves, he got five bunches tied onto his tree branch.

Being able to be up close to the koala was a really cool experience. Kuna appeared very relaxed and didn’t seem to mind our presence. I didn’t know that a koala’s front claws have two thumbs instead of one. But after Amy explained to us that it helps them climb better, it just made sense. It was very interesting watching the koalas climb around the trees; I was amazed how well they could get around from one branch to another. Their fur looked very soft and their facial expressions when they are just hanging out was quite entertaining to watch.

Overall, it was a privilege to be so close to koalas and to learn more about them directly from one of their keepers.

Madalyn is a student at High Tech High in San Diego.

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